Empire Falls

marry Walt, all right, just like she’d been threatening, even if it was true that he’d planned to keep his old age a secret. Even if he did have a wattle.
    It was that Whiting girl across the way, though. Now that her mother had identified her, Janine was sure of it. Not that Cindy was a girl anymore. She looked like she’d put on some weight, which for her was a good thing. The last time Janine had seen her she looked like somebody in the last days of a prison hunger strike. It was possible they actually were dating, of course, but the more Janine thought about it, the more she feared that this was some kind of a predicament that Miles had gotten himself into, and she couldn’t help wondering how. She knew he was terrified of the woman, who’d been in love with him and even tried to kill herself over him, an idea Janine had always considered comical. In her opinion, being married to Miles was what inspired thoughts of self-annihilation. Failing to marry him should’ve been cause for celebration in any sensible woman. Of course, Cindy Whiting, by all accounts, was not a sensible woman, which was why she’d spent half her adult life in institutions. What in the world could have induced Miles to lower his guard this way? Well, he was a master at trapping himself, of course, but Janine still would’ve liked to know how he’d managed it this time. In fact, she felt a strong urge to call him up after the game and ask. Since their separation, what she found herself missing most were little things, like listening to Miles try to explain how he’d yet again got himself talked into doing what he’d just sworn never to do again. He wasn’t going to run for school board ever again; then, ten minutes later he’d cave in because Otto Meyer had asked him. As if that explained anything. As if there were no way to predict in advance that of course “Oscar” Goddamn Meyer would ask him. As if Otto Meyer were the sort of man you couldn’t say no to, when in fact everybody said no to him, including his staff, who were supposed to do what he told them. Or take American Legion baseball. He was all done umpiring. Never again. That was in the morning. By afternoon, after all the coaches got together and begged him, just until they could find somebody else, he’d agree to one more year. Right. It was pathetic, really, and when Janine decided to divorce him, she’d added watching-Miles-get-suckered-into-doing-things-he-didn’t-want-to-do-and-swore-he-wouldn’t-do to the long list of things she wouldn’t miss. And at first she didn’t. It was only lately …
    Walt was a different breed of cat entirely, of course, never one to draw a line in the sand and then rub it out two minutes later, and this had attracted her from the start. The problem though, she had to admit, was that Walt wouldn’t commit either to doing or not doing much of anything. The secret of his success, he was fond of reminding her, was keeping all his options open. There were times when zigging was called for, but on further reflection you might want to zag. One of his favorite expressions was “You know, a smart man might just …” and then he’d explain just what a smart man might do. In the beginning Janine imagined these statements were actually connected in some way to his intentions. Like—they’d sell the house he owned and use the money to buy Miles out of their house. Nobody was going to come out of this divorce with much, but Miles was taking the worse beating, and it embarrassed the hell out of her when Walt just changed his mind. He’d quietly found a renter for his own house and now was consistently vague about how the whole thing would work out, money-wise. Once they were married, was the rent money going into their account or his? Miles, she feared, would never see the first dime.
    In fact, now that she thought about it, Walt hadn’t said diddly about his finances in general, though of course this would change, by law, the minute they were married. Janine was more than a little curious about how much money there really was, and one of the ways she rationalized their shafting Miles was by promising herself to make sure he got his fair share later, once she could write checks against their joint account. There was the health club, of course, and now the rental house, and she’d gotten the impression he owned a couple other properties. She didn’t know what they were, exactly, or even where. Lately he’d been talking about